


Building Bridges Of Smoke And Ash

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [33]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 09:54:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3763744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lip's going to get his brother back if it's the last thing he does. They both burned these bridges, but he's dead set on finding at least the foundations again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the multi-chap that could really be one long fic, but I'm choosing not to make it so :) It's a bit ahead of the others I've done so far, so some will be slotted in behind it!
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Back in that group house that Ian had insisted on trying to call a home, Lip had found a boy who wore his brother’s face, but who wasn’t him at all.

            He’d recognised the face staring back at him, the familiar red hair and freckles and that slightly dopey smile, but that had been the extent of it. That had been all there was of the old Ian to remain, the Ian he’d read stories to and persuaded against believing in the monsters under his bed.

            He’d known something was different the minute he’d laid eyes on his brother.

            Lip – as proven – was far from stupid, and sure, sometimes he could be a little clueless, but he hadn’t been then. He’d seen the way that the other boys in that group home had eyed Ian warily. He hadn’t understood it at first. Hadn’t understood the fear in their faces, but then Ian had rushed outside and leapt straight into a fight fists first. And Lip had been left there thinking _well huh_.

            His Ian wouldn’t do that normally.

            But then, that was the whole problem, was it?

            Later when he’d thought back, what had scared him the most was that the first thing one of the other boys had told him was, “ _Just don’t touch Milkovich’s shit and you’ll be fine._ ” He’d only needed to know Mickey five minutes, to see the distaste in the other boy’s eyes, the possessiveness there to realise that he considered Ian one of his things.

            Ian was Mickey’s and Lip wasn’t going to let one little warning make him back off from his own brother.

            In hindsight, maybe he should have done a little bit. If he’d only backed off that little bit, it might have spared him a whole lot of unnecessary grief.

            As he’d said before though, Lip was smart, but he wasn’t always clued in.

            He doesn’t know how they got from standing opposite each other in a group home’s living room and smiling to Lip’s pen hesitating over the paper now though. How did it get this far? This fucked up?

            “What is it?” Amanda asks, confused by his hesitance.

            She cards her fingers through the back of his hair, presses a kiss to his neck. Never in a million years would Lip have imagined himself writing out wedding invitations. Sure, the whole sitting naked on a bed while doing it part, that he could have seen as being realistic, but this was just another mystery in his life. _How did he get here?_

            “I don’t know whether to invite my brother,” he admits.

            Amanda doesn’t know the whole sorry story of Ian and Mickey and Lip, but she knows enough. She knows there’s tension there. She knows that Ian still doesn’t talk to Fiona and honestly, this time, Lip can understand why.

            Her Jimmy comment was a step too far. It had been drawing a line where it shouldn’t have been drawn. But it was a little ironic that it was Ian who took offense. Ian, who had put his other half so far above the rest of his family that they weren’t even really in sight anymore.

            It was the worst sort of irony. One that kept Lip up at night and had him swilling those ice cubes around his glass and only tasting bitterness.

            “Why wouldn’t you?” she asks. “He should be there. Or at least have the option.”

            And she’s right, in theory. But…

            “He’ll bring his boyfriend though.”

            “ _So?”_

            Lip rolls his eyes. “You can tell you haven’t had the displeasure of meeting him.”

            She smacks his arm, hard in that way Amanda always does. She pulls no punches, his girl. It’s one of the things he loves about her. “Yes, I also haven’t met your brother, whose fault is that?” she asks. “You’re being childish.”

            He scoffs. “How am I being childish? You don’t even know them!”

            She stands and towers over him on the bed, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Do you?” she asks. “Isn’t that what you’ve been complaining about for the last two years. How you don’t know who your brother is anymore?”

            She drops back down, cups his face and softens. She could almost be bipolar and he could almost joke that she was, if he didn’t have first-hand experience of that particular demon.

            “Baby, have you even made the effort to try and get to know him?” she asks.

            He tries to pull his face out of her hold, but she keeps him pinned there. “Why do I have to be the one building bridges?” he asks, spiteful like a child, he’s fully aware. “I’m not the one who burned them.”

            “Aren’t you?” she asks.

            He hates this whole answering with questions shit. It’s practically psych 101, he knows that. It’s still annoying. And it’s annoying, because it still sort of works.

            “Look, it seems to me like you haven’t been making all that much effort. Yes, he could change some things too, but if this boyfriend was so bad for your brother, they wouldn’t have lasted this long, would they?”

            She pats his cheek, hard enough to sting.

            “Sounds like to me that he probably feels like you’ve taken the thing he loves, the thing that got him through that whole fucked up foster care system and shit all over it,” she says. “Did you ever look at it like that?” She can tell the answer from the look on his face. “Of course you didn’t. Fucking men, always need women to sort out your shit.”

            She plucks the invitation from her fingers and in her neat, scripture-like handwriting writes _Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich_ right in the To: section.

            “I expect this to be hand delivered,” she says, kissing his cheek. “And if he isn’t at my wedding. I want a divorce.”

            “Don’t you mean _our_ wedding?” he calls after her as she saunters out of their bedroom.

            Her laugh floats back to him. “Nope.”


	2. Chapter 2

He feels like an idiot, walking up to the front desk of his brother’s work and asking for him.

            He feels like a failure, not knowing such a simple thing, like where his little brother lived.

            Still, he supposes, that’s what you get.

            The woman behind the desk taps her long, bright pink nails against the wood as she eyes him up and down. She’s pretty, in a stuck up kind of way. All fake, blonde hair and push-up bra to make it look like she isn’t edging closer and closer towards the wrong side of thirty.

            Ian comes up short when he spots him. He was obviously expecting someone else and Lip doesn’t blame him. He just hopes the hesitance is nerves or curiosity and not a debate on whether or not he can just walk away.

            “What do you want?” he asks, pushing his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts. He’s giving Lip the chin, which as children had always seemed like such a hilarious thing. _My little brother gives me the chin when he’s angry_.

            It’s not so funny now.

            “I just want to talk to you. Five minutes,” he says. “Please.”

            Ian huffs out a breath, glances at the receptionist. “I have anyone booked in or can I take my break now?” he asks.

            She taps away on her keyboard for a second and then flashes him a genuine smile. It pulls at the edges of her bright pink lipstick, but for a second, it shows how pretty she really could be.

            “Not for another half an hour,” she says. “You go right ahead, I’ll cover for you if anyone complains.”

            “Thank you,” Ian says earnestly, leaning over the tall desk to drop a kiss on her cheek.

            She giggles, blushing like a school girl. “If you weren’t taken…”

            Ian laughs, “If I wasn’t gay, you mean?”

            “Oh sweetie, if Mickey wasn’t there, I’m sure I could change your mind.”

            Ian’s laugh dies when he turns back to Lip and the tension starts to creep back into his shoulders. The last time Lip saw Ian and properly looked at him, Ian was in a hospital bed, looking so small and sorry for himself.

            He looks like a giant now. He looks good. He’s all freckled skin pulled tight over defined muscles. His hair is cut short at the sides, but floppier on top, longer than Lip’s seen it since they were very small. He looks healthy and vibrant, practically vibrating with life.

            This is an Ian that Lip would have loved to see him grow into, if there wasn’t the memory of a teenager with blood on his face and an angry thug boyfriend watching his eyes move hovering behind the scenes.

            Ian takes them over to the gym’s small coffee shop, orders himself a green tea from yet another blushing young woman who slips him a complimentary biscuit and asks how Mickey is doing.

            If Lip hadn’t been the one to spring this on Ian, he would have thought his brother had had this all staged.

            They sit down opposite each other, Ian with his healthy tea and Lip with his unhealthy, containing lots of sugar coffee. Their spines are snapped straight, the nerves showing in the shake of Lip’s hands. He slouches deliberately to try and lighten the mood. It doesn’t work, it just looks forced.

            “What do you want Lip?” Ian asks eventually, breaking the silence but not the tension.

            “I’m getting married,” he blurts out, flinching even as he slides across the invitation that Amanda had tucked into his jacket pocket a week ago. Like he was a child with a detention slip, she’s been scowling at him ever since over dinner. He just knows she’s been checking his pockets for it.

            Ian’s eyebrow quirks in surprise, but there isn’t much of a reaction otherwise. “Do you want my congratulations?” he asks. He turns the invitation over in his hands, but doesn’t open it.

            Lip wishes he would, wishes he would see it’s for both Mickey and him so that Lip doesn’t have to try and come out and say that the thug’s welcome. He both is and he isn’t. Amanda wants them both there, Lip is willing to bite the Milkovich bullet if it means he can see Ian as he stands at the end of that aisle.

            It seems like a lifetime ago, he would have been sure Ian would have made his best man. Instead it’s Kev, who still finds it hard to reconcile the stories they tell of Ian with the strain in everyone’s voice when they tell them.

            “No, Ian, I want you to come,” he says, wringing his hands together.

            There goes the eyebrow again. “Just me?”

            He shrugs. “It’s up to you.”

            Apparently, that was the wrong way to phrase it.

            “So you’d expect me to say it’s up to you if you bring your wife to my wedding?” he asks, the bite in his tone sharp enough to make Lip flinch.

            “You making Mickey your husband now?”

            Ian scowls. “No, that’s not the point.”

            Lip takes a sip of his coffee, scalds his tongue. It feels like a suitable retribution. What does he need his tongue for? None of his words are coming out right anyway.

            “Look,” he says, takes a deep breath. “I’d like you there, okay? And I’m trying to make the effort here… I’m trying, Ian.”

            Ian’s gaze softens slightly as they stare at each other across the tiny coffee table.

            “How did we get here, Lip?” he asks. He seems to honestly want to know.

            And Lip could blame it all on Mickey. He could say that they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Mickey Milkovich, but he doesn’t think it would be completely true. Sure, Mickey has played a large part, but Ian and he would probably still be worlds apart even without him present.

            As a child, Ian had always just sort of faded into the background. He had been the quiet one, the overlooked. Frank had hated him with a passion none of them could understand, so Ian had gotten good and not being noticed by their deadbeat father. Eventually, it had started extending a little bit to all of them.

            Ten years old when they’d been split up and Ian had already worked out how to avoid asking for things. He’d never asked for money for a school trip. He’d never complained at the holes in Lip’s hand-me-down coats. He’d paid his own way, never really complained about anything.

            And they’d been so used to that Ian. The rock who had been there, but not really there at the same time.

            Each of them was a necessary piece of the Gallagher puzzle, but although harsh, it was true that Ian just wasn’t one of those vital edge pieces. He wasn’t the centre like Fiona, or the revealing bit like Lip. He just was. He was there, but if someone lost his piece or bent it a little, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

            Lip hated how he knew that was true.

            It was why when Ian had come back, so different and angry and willing to make himself the centre of everyone’s attention before fading rapidly back into the background to let them deal with the aftermath, none of them had known what to do. The younger ones had adapted well enough. Their memories weren’t good enough for them to assume that this Ian was much different from the one from before.

            They thought Ian fighting back against Frank was normal. They thought that Ian casually threw punches sometimes, often enough to be expected for it. They thought that Ian had a tongue in his head more than willing to voice his displeasure with his mother, with their life.

            And they’d thought it was all normal enough to the degree that maybe eventually it had become the new normal. Lip was just still stuck with Fiona in the past.

            “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I don’t want to lose you, but you have to cut me a bit of slack here, Ian. You have to try not to be such a stubborn shit for once.”

            “Fuck you,” Ian says, but he’s smiling.

            He scratches the back of his neck, sips his tea. “We’ll come,” he says. “But this is your last chance. You don’t know Mickey; you don’t get the right to judge him.”

            Lip would like to think he knows enough, but he can see where Ian is coming from.

            “Fine,” he concedes, begrudgingly. “But good luck getting your boyfriend into a suit.”

            Ian pulls a face, but then smirks, “I have my ways.”

            “Ew.” The silence that falls then still isn’t uncomfortable, but it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before. “What’s new with you then?” he asks, just for something to say, but he also honestly is curious.

            Ian huffs. “What’s new with me in the past _two years_?” he asks, making Lip wince. “Let’s see, my leg healed fine. Mickey’s sister Mandy had a baby, so we’re now Uncles. I’ve started working outside of the gym with clients as a personal trainer. And I finally think I’m wearing Mickey down on the issue of having a dog.”

            He shrugs and sits back then, sipping his tea again. He’s probably wondering which piece of information Lip is going to go to first. He wonders if this is some sort of test, like if he picks one not directly related to Mickey then he’s going to fail in some monumental way and break this fragile truce.

            “That’s really good,” he says, genuinely smiling. He doesn’t know which is the right answer, so he just picks at random. “How’s life as an uncle treating you?”

            Ian laughs, his whole face lighting up as he digs around in his pocket for his phone. He shows Lip his screensaver. It’s a picture of Mickey holding a tiny baby, obviously only a few days old. She bundled up in a pale pink onesie and is honestly rather cute as she stares back at Mickey. It’s the softest that Lip thinks he has ever seen the Milkovich look. He almost looks _caring_ as he looks at the child.

            It’s unsettling because it feels like Ian’s proving something to him.

            “I’m totally her favourite,” Ian says, beaming. “Sure Mick taught her to draw, but I do the best rocket ship rides, so I have him beat.”

            Lip can’t help but be amused at the look on his brother’s face, at the words coming out of his mouth. “Thought the way to a kid’s heart was buying them shit,” he says.

            “Shows what you know,” Ian says, but it isn’t venomous as previously it would have been. He’s still smiling, looking at the picture on his phone softly even though he has to have seen it a thousand times already.

            “It’s great about the job thing too,” Lip says next, then waves a hand around them. “This place not mind you doing that though? Branching out?”

            Ian shrugs. “Not really. There’s some cross-over of clients, but for the most part I use the facilities here to help train people, so really, they’re still getting the membership out of it.” He sets his drained cup down and finally sinks down fully into his seat. He looks more relaxed around Lip than he has done in a long time.

            “What’s the next step?”

            “Once my client list gets big enough, I’m probably going to start cutting down on more of my hours here,” he says. “I mean, the aim is obviously to quit here altogether, but the pay’s steady, so not yet.”

            “Mickey still working with trash?” he asks, just to be fair.

            “No,” Ian says and leaves it at that.

            He shifts, stretching his arms high above his head and Lip spots a tattoo crawling up towards his armpit. He can’t quite make out what it is, but it’s still baffling. Ian, the child who screamed through getting all of his shots willingly subjecting himself to the needle. He wouldn’t have pictured it, but it just shows how little he knows.

            “Nice ink,” he comments.

            He’s never been good at keeping his mouth shut.

            “Thanks,” Ian comments, twisting and looking down at his ribcage. His fingers catch on the armhole of his shirt just enough that it stretches to reveal feathers. Funny, since Ian had never been too big on birds either when they were younger. “Speaking of,” Ian says next. “How’d you like Eddie?”

            Lip knows the surprise is showing clearly on his face, but he can’t help it.

            “You’ve met Eddie?” he asks.

            Ian snorts, but Lip can’t tell if he’s offended or not. “’Course,” he says. “Who’d you think gave Carl the coming out advice?”

            He laughs quietly. “Should have thought, yeah.”

            He doesn’t know why he didn’t.

            “Well, I mean, it was Mickey actually, but same thing,” Ian says and glances up at the clock. Lip doesn’t know how long his break is, but it’s definitely coming to an end judging by the look on his face.

            “You have to go?” Lip asks, even though he doesn’t really know why he’s bothering. It’s not really a question. They both know he does.

            “Yeah,” Ian says, standing.

How long has he been towering over Lip for? Probably their whole life and Lip’s only just opened his eyes enough to notice.

“This was good though,” Ian admits. “You’re not so bad when you’re not deliberately trying to be an asshole.”

Lip snorts, choosing not to be offended. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. He wants to go in for a hug, but he knows they’re not there yet so he just lingers awkwardly, hands swinging by his sides. “So you’ll come to the wedding?”

“I said I would.”

“Good, good,” Lip says. He’s stalling. “Amanda’ll have my balls if you’re not there, quite literally.”

Ian chuckles, leading the way towards the exit. “That her name, Amanda?”

Lip could kick himself. How could they get to the point that his own brother doesn’t even know his future wife’s name? He’s really, _really_ fucked up, he can see it now.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

They stand around awkwardly for a minute, neither quite sure what to do. The receptionist is watching with her judgemental eyes again. It feels like she’s picturing skinning Lip alive.

“I’ll see you around, Lip,” Ian says, starting to walk away. “Say hello to Amanda for me.”

He nods, stupid like a puppet. When Ian’s already out of sight, too late, he wonders if he should have maybe returned the sentiment. If he should have wished Mickey well or something.

He decides it wouldn’t have mattered, it’s not like Mickey would have thought he’d meant it. (He probably wouldn’t have.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone else been having any trouble with this appearing as part of the halfway house series? I keep shifting it back so it's last and I don't know if it's messing anything up.....

Lip lets himself into the Gallagher house, thumbing the familiar key on the familiar keychain. Even if he never really lived here properly for long, he’ll still always think of this as home.

            “Hello?” he calls through the house. “Fi?”

            “Hey Lip!” Liam greets him instead, thundering down the stairs. He crashes into Lip’s legs, almost sending him flying into the back of the couch. Lip doesn’t mind though, bending down to ruffle the little man’s afro affectionately. Almost ten-years-old and Lip doesn’t know where the time has gone.

            He remembers standing in the hospital waiting for Liam to be born.

            Liam’s the best of them in so many ways. Free from the wrath of Monica and with Frank showing no interest in him, he hadn’t ever had to worry quite like the rest of them had. He had the best parts of all of them. Fiona’s selflessness, Debbie’s kindness, Lip’s brains and Carl’s ability to be completely unpredictable.

            Lip wonders what Liam would have gotten from Ian if he had been around.

            “Fi here?” he asks, throwing his bag down against the bottom of the stairs.

            Liam nods. “She’s getting changed.”

            “Cool,” he says. “You wanna stick the TV on or something while Fi and I talk?”

            That was the other thing about Liam, any of the others would have pulled a face at the suggestion, done the exact opposite. Liam just smiles and nods, plonking himself down in front of the television and flicking through the channels until he finds something he wants.

            He was always such an easy child and Lip didn’t know if that meant his teenage years were going to follow suit or if he was going to be absolute hell. In some ways he hoped for the latter. Firstly, it would keep Fiona busy when she most needed it, she was looking a little bereft now the house was empty of all but her and Liam. And secondly, it’d show that maybe the kid was a bit more normal than he was looking to end up being.

            “Hey,” Fiona says when she comes down, dropping a kiss on his cheek. “You good? Amanda okay?”

            Lip nods. “Yeah, she’s a little stressed about the wedding, but apparently I only make it worse when I try to help so…”

            She laughs. “Should have just done it like me. No preparation, not telling anyone.”

            Just after the blow out with Ian, Fiona had broken up with Jimmy – Jimmy/Steve/Jack as he eventually came to be – and gotten married to a guy she’d known for a week. He’d been nice, Gus, but not really Fiona’s speed. She’d messed it up like they all knew she would. No judgement there, but they just hadn’t been surprised.

            It had hardly lasted two months.

            Lip didn’t even know if they still spoke. He doubted it.

            “You just thought you’d drop by then?” she asks, fishing some juice out of the fridge and pouring it out for the both of them. Lip takes the glass, but just turns it in his hands. “Stay out of the way?”

            “Kinda,” he says. “I thought I’d warn you about something though too.”

            Her eyebrows fly up and she leans back against the counter, studying him. “Amanda’s not pregnant is she?” she asks.

            Lip snorts, “No.”

            “So what is it?”

            Lip and Fiona had always been close. Maybe it had been the age difference, maybe it had just been because they’d been the two that had had to band together to keep everything running smoothly when their parents took off. Lip had been close to Ian too, once, male solidarity and all that, but him and Fiona had a bond that went a little deeper than just gender and brotherhood.

            When they fought, it was ugly, but he’d always be there to fight in Fiona’s corner. It was why when Ian and her went to shit, he’d stayed solidly by Fiona’s side. It wasn’t picking sides, he would insist that, it was just… he _knew_ Fiona. He didn’t know how to get through to Ian about anything.

            Sometimes he wondered if maybe he’d made the wrong choice, but if he played his cards right, it wouldn’t matter so much. He’d get his brother back and keep his sister, simples.

            “Ian’s going to be at the wedding,” he says, swirling the juice around in the class.

            He watches the way Fiona stiffens and then the horrible, hopeful look she gets on her face.

            “He is?”

            Her voice just about breaks his heart.

            “Yeah,” he says. “And… I dunno if he’s going want to see you. But, I just thought I’d let you know. Amanda pointed out I should be making more of an effort with him and Mickey, that I don’t really know either of them like I think I do. So…”

            She nods. “I get it. I’ll try and talk to him, but I’m not going to fuck up your wedding, I promise.”

            He shrugs. “Apparently it’s not my wedding anyway,” he says. “But yeah, Amanda would kill you.”

            Fiona laughs, “Damn right she would.”


	4. Chapter 4

Lip feels like he’s maybe stalking them when he walks into the bar and seeing Mickey there sipping a beer.

He looks different from the last time Lip had seen him, but then it had been years since he’d looked at Mickey, frazzled and tired standing in a hospital room.

This Mickey is clean, hair swept back and a smile on his face as he listens to something the guy beside him says. This Mickey almost looks like someone you wouldn’t mind dating your brother, but it’s hard when Lip’s first impression of him was seeing him head butt some guy in the face.

“Milkovich,” Lip says, sliding onto the stool beside him.

It’s funny, how quickly he can get Mickey to tense up.

He turns, narrows his eyes and Lip can see him fighting his natural instinct. Which, quite honestly, is probably just to punch Lip in the face and walk away. Lip gets how that feels. “What?” he asks bluntly.

There’s no sugar-coating with Mickey, it’s a trait that Lip can sometimes find himself appreciating.

He smirks. “What sort of person would I be if I didn’t drop by to say hello?” he asks. “You are practically my brother-in-law you know.”

Mickey rolls his eyes and takes a long pull from his beer. “Are your in-laws such assholes?” he asks the guy sitting next to him.

It’s a big dude, older with laughter lines set deep into his face, hair greying around the temples. His eyes are kind, but Lip finds himself caught up on just how large the guy’s hands are. He could crush Lip’s skull like it was a skittle beneath his boot.

Still, Lip’s never been one to back down.

The guy chortles loudly and swirls the last of his own beer around in the bottom of his glass. “I ain’t sayin’ shit against my in-laws,” he says, rising. He claps his hand down heavy on Mickey’s shoulder. “They’re of course wonderful people, but I’ll tell you this much…in-laws are just something you have to suffer through, brother.”

Mickey snorts into his glass. “Fuckin’ pussy,” he says. “You off?”

The big guy nods. “Yeah, the Mrs’ll have my balls in the freezer and serve them up for brunch if I’m not home soon,” he says. “It was good catchin’ up with you though, Mick. Tell the gingerbread that I see his pasty ass running at the ass-crack of dawn and he’s a fucking nutter.”

Mickey laughs. “Don’t I know it.”

He waves the guy off and twists back around in his seat, apparently going for the method of ignoring Lip and hoping he’ll just go away. He won’t.

“Ian tell you about the wedding?” Lip asks.

“He mentioned something,” Mickey grinds out, talking through his teeth like this is all a great chore for him. Admittedly, it probably is. And if Lip had a bit more common sense, he’d probably just walk away and leave Mickey to the rest of his drink.

As it is though, he decides to be stupid and flags down the bartender. “Another beer for me and my friend here,” he says.

Mickey scoffs, “We friends now?”

He drains the last of what’s in his glass and eagerly starts in on the fresh pint that’s set in front of him. “Don’t see you turning it down.”

“Like fuck I’m gonna turn down free beer,” Mickey points out. “Besides, I’m gonna need a buzz if I have to deal with your piss-face ass.”

“Piss-face ass,” Lip repeats. “Where the hell do you get your insults, man? You should get a refund on that shit.”

Mickey flips him off and he laughs. This whole thing almost feels normal; which of course just cements how much it really isn’t.

“Look… you gonna come to the wedding or not?” he asks. “I’d really like my brother there.”

“I ain’t his keeper,” Mickey says. “He can do what he wants.”

A part of Lip wonders if that’s really true, but it isn’t his business right now to go prying into the intricacies of their relationship. It won’t get him anywhere. “We both know he ain’t going without you,” Lip points out.

Mickey shrugs.

“Just come on,” he implores. “I really don’t want to be that guy that gets married with only some of his family there.”

“Should have thought of that before you started pickin’ arguments and making him feel like shit,” Mickey says. He takes another deep mouthful and for the first time since Lip has sat down, looks him dead in the eye. “The fuck have I ever really done to you, man? Why’d you hate me so much?”

It’s not a question he ever thought he would be faced with Mickey Milkovich asking. So for just a second, he’s left unprepared. He doesn’t quite know what to do, so the only real method is to go for honesty, full disclosure.

“You stole my brother. A few years with you and I hardly even fucking recognised him when he came home.”

“Fuck you, man,” Mickey says, hands braced flat on the bar top like if he doesn’t keep them there he’s going to throw a punch. “I ain’t stole shit from you. Ian grew up. He wouldn’t been different with or without me. It’s called life.”

And maybe that was true to some degree, but it didn’t change the fact that Mickey obviously made the whole situation happen a lot faster and go a lot worse.

“The first time I saw you, you dragged my innocent little brother into a fist fight,” he points out.

Mickey rolls his eyes. “I didn’t drag him anywhere,” he says. “He jumped in. And get your facts straight before you start complaining about what I fight for. I had my reasons.” He scowls down at his hands, at the letters there.

Lip wonders if he’s ever ashamed of them.

“Go on then,” he says. “Enlighten me.”

Mickey swills his beer around his mouth, probably weighing up whether or not it’ll do him any good to actually answer. He chews on the words for a second longer before he finally spits them out.

“Can’t remember exactly what for, but they were planning the drop on Ian,” he explains. “People were always doing that, thinking he was the weak link in the whole situation. Heard them lay their whole plan out. Figured I’d throw a spanner in the works.” He shrugs. “Knew Gallagher’d jump in, figured it’d show them what they were really up against. And if he didn’t, well at least I could beat the idea out their heads well enough on my own.”

Honestly, that’s not what he expected Mickey to say. That’s not what Lip thought the explanation would be.

It’s hard to think of Mickey as anything but a mindless thug. He’d never really thought much about motive, because he hadn’t thought Mickey would be smart enough to have one. He realises then, that what’s really been happening here is that he’s been underestimating his opponent every step of the way.

He’s been an idiot.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” he asks.

He remembers Ian asking him what the fight was about, remembers hearing Mickey say he didn’t remember.

Lip hadn’t factored in that he could be lying.

“Why would I?” Mickey asks.

He has a point.

When Mickey leans back a little and rubs his thumb across his mouth, Lip knows he’s gearing up to say something. Before he wouldn’t have given Mickey the time to reach the words, but now… now he’s curious about what Mickey’s going to say.

“Look,” he says slowly, scratching a hand through his hair and ruining the styled coif he had going on. “I love your brother. I know you don’t like it much and you probably don’t fucking believe me, but I ain’t gonna hurt him. I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” he admits.

That’s the one thing that Lip does know. He knows that they can’t keep Mickey away no matter how they try. He knows that the guy just keeps coming back and after all this time, if it wasn’t because of love, what other reason could there be?

He thinks he might just have earned a little bit of respect by confessing that.

“So…” he says after a minute. “Ian says you quit working with trash…”

Mickey coughs out a low laughs, tips his head back and the look he gives the ceiling could only be described as incredulous. “Shut the fuck up, Gallagher,” he says. “We ain’t there yet so you can save the chit-chat.”

Lip laughs and breathes out, “Thank God.”

Mickey just looks amused, but eventually Lip can tell he’s had enough of this whole situation. “Well, this has been interesting,” he says and it’s not completely clear whether or not he’s joking.  “Thanks for the beer and… we’ll be at that wedding thing, I guess. We’ll come.”

He can’t help the grin that splits his face. “Awesome,” he says, hands twitching like he wants to clap Mickey on the back or shake his hand or _something_. He feels giddy, like a kid at Christmastime.

“Jesus, calm your fuckin’ tits,” Mickey mutters, but it seems like he can’t help but be amused as he casts Lip one last glance before walking out.

Lip stays there a little bit longer, just leisurely sipping away at his pint. He’s honestly stunned and he can’t even remember why he came in this bar in the first place. One thing he does know though, is that that whole situation went a whole lot better than he ever could have expected.

_Who would have known?_


	5. Chapter 5

“Something’s got you happy,” Amanda comments when he gets home.

He cages her in against the counter and kisses her neck.

“My brother’s coming to our wedding,” he says, grinning.

She gives him a genuine smile, so happy for him that he immediately knows why this girl is different. He knows why he’s marrying her. _How could he possibly not want to?_

“He sent back his RSVP?” she asks. “I didn’t see it come.”

Lip shakes his head, kisses her. He hasn’t felt this happy in a long time. It feels like everything’s started to come together, finally. “No, I ran into Mickey,” he explains. “We talked… it wasn’t so fucked up.”

“You cleared the air then?”

He nods. “More or less. He says they’re coming anyway.”

Amanda cups his face between her hands and kisses him. She tastes like berries and that fancy lip gloss she always insists on wearing.

“You didn’t argue that it was our wedding,” he points out, murmuring the words against her lips.

She laughs. “I figured I’d let you have that one.”

He cups behind her thighs, lifts her up and sets her on the counter. He pushes in closer, holds her face and just kisses her for a long time before he reaches between her legs to pull her panties down and out of the way.

She laughs when he slides into her, her body moulding around him like a glove. He pushes his face into the side of her neck, breathes in the sweet smell of her hair. She has one hand gripping the back of his neck tight, the other scratching lines right the way down his back.

This is the only time he can get her to lose complete control. Sometimes.

Sometimes he doesn’t quite succeed, he can feel that’s she’s the one with the reins, putting him where she wants him, using him for her own pleasure. He doesn’t mind, but it’s nice to get her to unwind once in a while.

It feels good to get her to just fall against him, completely sag with the force of her orgasm and moan into his mouth as he fucks her right through it. He likes being the only one to have that power over her, to reduce this put together girl to something that’s more his level for once.

He doesn’t deserve her, but he’s working on it. He really is.

He thinks maybe he would know the way to go a little more if he had Ian by his side. Ian was always so black and white, even as children. Good or bad. Right or wrong. Love or hate. There was never much of a grey area with Ian, even if working out which side he was on was like navigating a mine field.

Lip’s glad he isn’t like that, he wouldn’t know how to deal with it. He can’t make decisions like that.

But he thinks, maybe he can a little bit with Amanda. Maybe he did. Or maybe he really didn’t. He loves her, that’s clear to him now. But when it comes to things like, is she good, is he… he doesn’t know.

He thinks that might be why Ian can’t completely understand _him_ , why they clash. He’s the grey area that Ian can’t exist in. Lip is everything Ian doesn’t know how to understand.

But Lip is willing to learn how to speak his brother’s language if Ian is willing to try the same.

“Fucking concentrate, _fuck_ ,” Amanda says, jerking his head back hard by his hair and bringing him back to the immediate present.

She’s chasing her second orgasm and like a sudden epiphany, he realises his own is catching up to him too.

Amanda shakes against him, her internal muscles milking him for all he’s worth. He falls against her, flat against the kitchen top where she’ll be cooking dinner for her parent’s later. It feels like retribution, it makes him laugh and he knows she knows why.

After a second, she pats his cheek, shifts him off her. She’s never been one for much afterglow. He doesn’t usually mind. “Well thanks for that,” she says. “Now go get changed. My parents’ll be here in an hour.”

“Yes boss,” he says, kissing her cheek.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Morning everyone :)

Kev doesn’t invite Ian to his bachelor party, because why would he think to?

Like an idiot, Lip doesn’t think to notice until he’s three sheets to the wind and mumbling to himself under his breath.

“Fuck,” he says, catching Kev’s attention. He stares down at his phone in his hand, doesn’t remember pulling it out of his pocket. “My brother’s not here.”

Kev laughs, almost topples off his seat. “Carl’s here, man!”

He shakes his head. “The other one.”

“Oh.”

It’s funny how much can be summed up in just one syllable.

“Yeah,” he says. He stares at his phone for a second longer. He could call Ian, invite him, but it’s already late and he doesn’t know if they’re there yet. He doesn’t know how to ask him to come drink with him, come pretend like they’re the best of friends.

Alcohol could heal a lot of the wounds between them, he’s sure, but he doesn’t just want it to be for one night. He wants them to both earn the forgiveness and go from there.

So he doesn’t call.

“You should do something stupid,” Kev says, jabbing him with a giant finger and pushing forwards another shot.

“I came out with you, didn’t I?” Lip says at the same time as Carl yells, “He’s already getting fucking married!”

Lip flips his little brother off whilst Kev booms out a laugh.

“You should get your dick pierced,” Carl says, ambling over and leaning against the bar between them. He’s not nearly as drunk as they are, eyes glinting with mischief like he honestly believes there will ever be a time Lip is drunk enough to let someone shove a needle through his dick.

“You just want to know how it works,” Lip accuses.

Carl shrugs.

“Use Google like a normal freak,” Kev laughs, accidentally catches Carl’s bestfriend/boyfriend Eddie’s eye from across the room at the words. He raises his hands automatically. “Didn’t mean it like that,” he shouts and Eddie looks away.

“Scary fucker,” Kev mutters under his breath and straight into his shot glass.

“He probably heard that,” Carl says, a tightness around his eyes.

 _Jesus_ , the pair of them are both so protective over the other’s mental state. It would be funny if it wasn’t maybe a little worrying. Or maybe it was good for them. Lip hadn’t worked it out yet.

Sometimes it felt like there were way too many gays in this family. None of them entirely sane.

(Although, last he’d heard, Monica was playing it straight again. So there was that.)

“You should get a tattoo,” Carl suggests next. He steals Lip’s shot, but that’s okay, he probably didn’t need to be drinking it anyway.

“That’s –” not the worst idea Carl has ever had and he knows it.

“Man, Amanda will kill you,” Kev says, laughing.

And yeah she probably will, but, “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

So that’s how they wind up following Carl through the door of a small tattoo shop. In hindsight, it was maybe a little suspicious that Carl knew exactly where to walk, but Lip didn’t really question it until he walked through the door and was met with a familiar pair of blue eyes.

“You fucking work here?” he asks, staring at Mickey.

Mickey who is on the phone, rolling his eyes like this is the last thing he needs.

He presses the receiver into his shoulder, nods to Carl and Eddie and glares at him. “What the fuck do you want?” he asks.

“Lip’s getting a tattoo,” Carl says with just a little too much glee.

Mickey’s eyes narrow. “That shit wife approved?” he asks. “Don’t need her going after me with a fucking cake knife.”

Lip grins, he can picture it. “Nope.”

He sighs, points at Carl. “Your ass is taking the blame. And I ain’t doing this shit for free, you’re getting charged full price. I still don’t like you.”

Lip didn’t really expect anything different.

He watches as Mickey puts the phone back to his ear, can hear a tinny voice garbled down the line. “Sorry, your fuckhead brothers just walked in,” he says. There’s a pause. “Whack-job and dickhead… well obviously he wants a fucking tattoo… No promises… Look, I’ve got to go, I’ll be home after this. ‘Kay?” The corner of his mouth quirks up a little at whatever is being said on the other end of the phone. “You need anything bringing back… Okay, got it… You too.”

He hangs up and tucks the phone into his pocket, frowning when he looks up to see them all staring at him.

“What?” he barks.

“That Ian?” Lip can’t help but ask.

Mickey scoffs, “Obviously. Now, you know what you want or you need some fucking _time_?”

The way he says it makes it obvious he’d rather Lip didn’t spend a long time deliberating. e He looks

He looks at the displays on the wall briefly, points to a tribal looking thing, a phoenix just because it looks pretty cool.

“Do that one,” he says and Mickey nods.

“How’d you know him?” Kev asks while Mickey heads into the back, probably to draw it up. He didn’t know Mickey could draw, wouldn’t have seen that one coming ever.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Carl follow. Eddie stays, browsing through one of the portfolio books.

“He’s my brother Ian’s boyfriend,” Lip explains. “That’s Mickey.”

Kev makes an _ahh_ noise, understanding the weird edge to Lip’s tone with just that short explanation. Kev has heard the whole sorry story enough times over the rim of a shot glass. “Well he definitely doesn’t like you much either,” Kev comments.

Lip snorts, notices Carl muttering something to Mickey. Mickey laughs and nods his head. It probably isn’t good news, but he doesn’t let it bother him. He watches the sure way Mickey’s hand is flying over the paper.

 _Huh_ , he thinks.

“Tell me about it,” he says to Kev.

“You sure you want this guy tattooing you?”

Lip shrugs. “Probably not the best idea,” he admits, “But fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

(Spoiler: he’ll regret saying that.)

“Ain’t you supposed to let me check the placement or whatever?” Lip asks when Mickey has  him lie face down on his work bench. He’s having it on the back of his shoulder, somewhere  he won’t have to see it every day if he hates it.

Mickey snorts. “I don’t give enough of a shit about what you want for that,” he says.

Lip rolls his eyes. “Charmed.”

Off to the side, Carl is whispering something to Eddie, making him grin. As the buzzing of the needle starts up, Lip looks around what is obviously Mickey’s station, distracting himself.

It’s neat, neater than he would have pegged Mickey capable of. And proudly tacked up on the wall is a picture of Ian, shirtless and beaming, with the tattoo on his side proudly on display. It’s an eagle, large and proud and fierce looking. He’s never seen Ian quite so happy and that’s only a photograph.

He’s missed a lot, he knows that now.

“You do that?” he asks, gritting his teeth a little at the sting in his shoulder. He jerks his head towards the picture.

Not having to look up, Mickey nods. “Yeah, first one I ever did.”

“It’s good,” Lip admits.

“I know.”

He can’t help but laugh, but makes Mickey scowl at him. “Lie the fuck still,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“Ian said you’re getting a dog,” is what he says next. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because he figures whilst he’s lying there, he might as well try and actually make conversation with Mickey.

He knows what the guy said last time about small talk, but there has to be some sort of agreement between the tattooist and the guy getting repeatedly stabbed with a needle.

Mickey snorts. “Like fuck,” he says. “He thinks it’ll be a good idea. Then it’ll eat his shoe, shit in the bed and he’ll make me deal with it. Ian just wants to cuddle it. I may as well get him a teddy bear.”

It reminds Lip of when they were really young and Ian had saved up for a gold fish. He’d been obsessed with staring at the thing through the bowl. So much so, he’d forgotten to feed it and the dumb little thing had died within the week.

They had in fact gotten him a teddy bear instead.

Lip smirks and then winces when the needle hits the edge of his shoulder blade. He opens his eyes to Mickey’s amused expression. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he asks.

“What? Am I enjoying stabbing you over and over again with a tiny needle and causing you pain?” Mickey asks. He grins wide. “Oh yeah.”

“You’re such a fucking dick.”

“So I’ve been told,” he says. He doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest, but Lip didn’t ever think he would.

He watches the concentration on Mickey’s face for a second, oddly fascinated by this side of him. More and more he’s starting to see the person that Ian loves. It’s unsettling, because he doesn’t really want to. At the same time though, it feels like personal growth.

“You planning on tying the knot with my brother at any point then?” Lip asks, grinning when Mickey narrows his eyes at him.

“You really want to piss off the man holding a tattoo gun?” he asks. He waves it at Lip, like he could possibly forget the thing that’s stabbing him on repeat.

 _What’s the worst he’s going to do?_ Lip thinks and ploughs on.

“See, I notice you didn’t answer,” he says.

Without missing a beat, Mickey says, “Well then you can also notice how it’s none of your fucking business.”

“My brother, my business,” Lip mutters, a little offended.

Mickey scoffs. “You gotta earn that right,” he says. “And you ain’t yet.”

It hurts because it’s true.

It wouldn’t surprise him if Ian and Mickey did get married. It also wouldn’t surprise him if maybe they already had and none of the Gallaghers had been invited. Mickey was right about the fact that they hadn’t really earned the right to expect things from Ian. It didn’t change that Lip had always pictured himself standing at his brother’s side at his wedding.

Then again, he’d pictured Ian at his bachelor party, as part of his wedding party; and look how that was turning out to be.

Mickey’s phone rings not to long after that. “What?” he barks into it, charming as ever.

Lip watches him roll his eyes. “No I’m obviously not fucking done yet,” he says. “If I was done I’d be home… well this is only gonna take another five minutes, coulda been done if you hadn’t fucking rung me… no I haven’t stabbed him. Why? You wanna come have a go?... Yeah yeah, alright… Look, fuck off alright, I’ll be home soon… _Fuck off, Gallagher_ , I ain’t playing this game with you!”

Lip can hear Ian’s laugh down the phone before Mickey hangs up. It makes something inside of him ache.

“Your brothers a fucking idiot,” Mickey mutters, getting back to work on Lip’s shoulder.

Lip smiles. “Why?”

“Just is,” he says. He sounds so fond it’s sickening.

There’s another minute and then, “There,” Mickey says, already starting to bandage it up.

“You not gonna let me look at it?” Lip asks and Carl’s cackling in the background.

Mickey smirks. “Call it a surprise for you and your wife to share,” he says. “Now fuck off, I want to go home and get my dick sucked by my fucking boyfriend.”

Lip grimaces, “Why the fuck would you say that?” He momentarily forgets about the tattoo, miming gagging at the thought of anything involving his little brother and dicks. _Either of them_ , Carl’s included in that. And he’s walked in on him and Eddie fucking more than once.

There’s not enough bleach to drink in the world.

He’s too busy trying to wipe those thoughts from his brain that he doesn’t think to check his shoulder until Amanda notices and peels off the bandage. And _that_ , is how Lip wound up getting Princess _Fucking_ Peach tattooed on the back of his shoulder blade until the day he died.

_Fucking, Milkovichs!_

_Fucking, Carl!_


	7. Chapter 7

Kev is standing beside him grinning.

Liam comes first, adorable in his small tux. He hugs Lip when he comes level, the rings clutched proudly in his fist.

Carl escorts Debbie down, looking grim-faced whilst she’s beaming. He glances at where Eddie’s beside Mickey and his shoulders relax. He still doesn’t smile.

Debbie looks beautiful, dressed in purple with her hair all piled up on the top of her head. She’s had it rough, but you can’t tell from her face right then. Her eyes don’t flicker to either side, she just grins at Lip as she goes to stand on Amanda’s side beside her sisters.

Ian’s in the pews on Lip’s side, three rows back with Mickey Milkovich beside him.

Fiona is walking proudly on her own. She’s dressed the same as Debbie, but at the same time looking so different. She has a hard time taking her eyes off of Ian when she spots him. Lip understands. Ian just looks down at his hands and then twists at Mickey’s nudge to stare at the approaching bride.

Amanda is just breath-taking.

It’s not even the dress or the hair or anything else, it’s just the smile on her face and the way she’s looking at him. With each step she takes closer, Lip can feel the confidence straightening his spine. _This is it_ , he thinks. _This is the rest of my life_.

He can’t wait.

He hardly even hears what’s said. He just says, “I do,” and listens to the way Amanda’s voice doesn’t even shake when she says it too. He takes the ring from his baby brother, slips in onto Amanda’s finger and grips her tight.

He kisses her before he’s told to, mouth moving so softly against hers that it doesn’t feel real. It feels like he can’t breathe, but he doesn’t even want to take a breath. He doesn’t want to move on from this moment, he just wants to live in it forever.

Because Amanda’s smiling at him and people are cheering. Fiona and Debbie are crying. Carl still looks bored, but that’s okay. Liam’s bouncing up and down, and then he’s lifted up and set on Kev’s shoulders.

“You ready?” Amanda whispers to him.

He looks over into the seats and catches Ian’s gaze. His eyes are slightly wet, but he’s smiling. He nods to Lip and Lip grins.

“More than,” he says. He means it.


	8. Chapter 8

“It make you want one of your own?” Lip asks when he finds Ian off in a corner watching Debbie dance with a guy she invited from her psych class.

Ian doesn’t look away from the dance floor. He raises his glass to his lips, whiskey on the rocks. “You’ve got a real obsession with my marital status,” he comments and finally glances at Lip out of the corner of his eye. “Mickey said you were grilling him too.”

“I was hardly grilling.”

Ian shrugs. “So… you haven’t said,” he says. “Should I be congratulating you or offering condolences.”

It makes him laugh, because it’s like they’re on good terms again. Like that summer when they were both in the same place, in that God awful group home.

“Congratulating, man,” he says, watching Amanda across the room. She catches his eye, starts to head over. “I’m happy.”

“Good,” Ian says. He seems like he means it, either that or his brother’s become a very good liar.

Amanda is all radiant smiles as she puts an arm around his waist and kisses his cheek. “You must be Ian,” she says, like they’re just old friends meeting and he’s not Lip’s lost brother she hasn’t yet had a chance to meet.

Ian’s smile is wide and charming. He takes her hand and kissed is in an exaggerated way. “And you must be the lovely, Amanda,” he says. “I apologise for him, I don’t know what you did in a past life, but it mustn’t have been good.”

She laughs and Lip can tell already that she likes him. “I wouldn’t know, he has his moments where he’s almost acceptable.”

“If only I didn’t bat for the other team,” Ian says. “I’d show you how a Gallagher can do it right.”

It’s weird, but he’s probably not far off. Ian’s been in the longest and most stable out of all of them.

“He’s a liar,” Mickey says, appearing suddenly at Ian’s elbow. “He’s horrible. You wouldn’t want him.”

Ian grins, his whole face lighting up at the sight of his boyfriend. His expression is almost sickening as he looks down at Mickey, drops an arm over his shoulders. “That’s not what you were saying last night,” he says.

Mickey shrugs, careful not to dislodge Ian’s arm. “I’ll say anything when under duress.”

“Oh, we’re calling it duress now?” Ian asks, laughing loud and bright.

Mickey runs a hand through his hair, flashing a tattoo on the inside of his wrist.

“I hear you’re the man responsible for Princess Peach,” Amanda says to Mickey then.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t annoyed when Lip got home from the bachelor party and showed her his shoulder. Of course, he hadn’t quite understood why she’d laughed her ass off so much at first. After all, he’d meant it when he’d asked, “You like my phoenix?”

“ _Sure, and so does Mario_ ,” she’d said.

Mickey looks a little sheepish and scratches the back of his neck. He doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Oh he was proud as hell of that shit,” Ian says, landing him right in it.

Mickey punches him in the ribs hard enough to make Ian wheeze. He’s blushing. “It was all Carl, I was just an unfortunate bystander.”

“Yeah, an unfortunate bystander with a tattoo gun,” Lip mutters. “I’m stuck with this shit for life, man!”

Amanda smiles. “Aww, babe,” she coos at him, kissing the side of his mouth. “I think you’re tattoos very manly.”

He looks at her in surprise, “Really?”

She snorts. “No, but then… that’s probably why it suits you.”

I want a divorce,” Lip says without hesitation and they all laugh.

“Please, I’m the best thing to ever happen to you,” she says.

It seems, Ian can raise his glass to that. Mickey’s just outright laughing. “She’s got your balls well and truly in a vice, hasn’t she?” he asks. He seems to love the idea greatly.

“Says my brother’s bottom bitch.”

Mickey just shrugs, unphased. Years ago, he would have hit Lip for that comment. “Liking what I like don’t make me a bitch, Gallagher,” he says and then points across the room. “And I dare you to go say that to Eddie over there.”

The hairs on the back of Lip’s neck stand on end when, as though he can hear them talking, Eddie looks directly at him. “Pass,” he says quickly.

“That’s what I thought,” Mickey says, looking smug.

“Oh so you’d go over there and say it to him, would you?” he questions. It’s something he’d pay to see.

Mickey doesn’t look bothered. “Eddie and I understand each other on a deep emotional level,” he says, sounding like he’s quoting straight from a text book.

Lip’s eyebrow climbs towards his hairline as Ian barks out a laugh.

“Yeah, you both know how to take it up the ass like a pro,” he comments and just grins when Mickey’s scowl turns on him.

“For that, I’m leaving you to the fucking dogs,” he says and walks off.

“Mick, no, come back!” Ian shouts after him, laughing. It just gets him the finger. “He’s such a prima donna,” he tells Lip.

“ _I heard that!”_

_“No you didn’t!”_

“They’re honestly like giant children who fuck,” Lip comments to Amanda as he watches them, bemused.

She smiles and they watch Mickey go over and throw himself into the seat next to Carl. Whatever he says makes Carl look over and give them the finger.

Ian cackles beside them like his Christmas has come early.

“I think they’re sweet,” she says.

Ian tenses up when Fiona stops beside them. She’s been dancing around Ian all night, not quite taking that final step to get close to him. It’s something that Ian has to have been aware of, but he hasn’t passed comment and he hasn’t made the first move.

He finally looks at her now, expression stony. “Don’t, Fiona,” he warns her. “We’re not getting into it here.”

The hopeful look on her face falls just as quickly as it had appeared. “That’s… I don’t want to _‘get into it’_ with you Ian,” she says. “I just want us to talk. I want us to be okay again.”

Ian scowls. “You know what they say, Fiona, hindsight’s a bitch.”

He gives Amanda another brief smile and then walks over to the bar. They watch him get his glass topped up before he sits beside Mickey. They scoot their chairs as close as they can possibly get. Mickey says something into Ian’s ear and glances over at them, but Ian just shakes his head and Mickey drops it, just like that.

“Give it time, Fi,” Lip says, because he has to say something. He doesn’t want his sister in pieces on a day when she’s supposed to be being happy for him. “He’ll come around.”

She looks at him with red eyes and a mouth set in a tight line. “Will he?” she asks.

Honestly, he doesn’t know. He wishes he did, but unfortunately, even Lip can’t know everything.


	9. Chapter 9

“Would you forgive her?” Ian asks later, cornering him in the bathroom.

It’s a little awkward, since Lip has his dick in his hand and all, but he figures, what’s a little urination between brothers.

“Who? Fiona?” he asks, unnecessarily.

Ian nods. “If she hated Amanda, would you forgive her?”

Lip sighs, tucks himself back in and goes over to the sink to wash his hands. He meets Ian’s eyes in the mirror. His brother looks frazzled, tired. Lip suspects he probably had another run in with Fiona, or at least it’s been plaguing his mind a little.

He doesn’t look entirely sober either, which can’t help.

“Honestly?” he says. “If she hated Amanda, I’m not sure if we’d still be together. I’m not sure if we would have made it this far.”

Ian stares at him, impenetrable. He’s like a fortress, all of his secrets nestled so deep within himself that Lip could hire a thousand locksmiths and he still couldn’t get close to cracking him.

“I find that sad,” Ian says.

“Why?” Lip asks. “Because I value the opinion of my family?”

Ian shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s not what it’s about. You should be able to make your own mistakes. Fiona’s not in your relationship, how can she be the judge of its right for you or not?”

“You know, I think that’s what victims of domestic violence say,” Lip replies.

“Fuck you,” Ian snaps at him, but he doesn’t storm away. He apparently isn’t done. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s all just boiling over. “Do you know what it was like in the Halfway House? All my life I’d been surrounded by you guys, looked after by you and Fiona and then suddenly I was on my own. I didn’t have you to fight for me anymore, I had to fight for myself. _That’s_ what Mickey taught me. Without him, I would have been eaten alive and all you two want to do is shit on him for that.”

He’s red in the face, breathing hard like he’s run a marathon.

Lip doesn’t know what Ian wants him to say here. He doesn’t know what _he_ wants to say here.

This time, Lip doesn’t have any of the answers, right or wrong.

“Do you know where I’d be without Mickey, Lip?” he asks.

He turns away, paces towards the mirror. He hunches over, hands gripping the porcelain of the sink tight, knuckles shining. He stares at himself in the mirror and Lip wonders what he sees.

“Where?” he asks. He’s not expecting the answer he gets.

He would have thought it would be some melodramatic answer like: in a gutter somewhere. It isn’t. That’s the problem, it isn’t all that dramatic at all. It’s just blunt and real and Lip knows he means it.

“I’d be in the army right now,” Ian says. “I’d be in the army, would have signed up on my eighteenth birthday.” He laughs and it’s a horrible sound. “You and Fiona think that without Mickey I’d be with you, we’d be a happy little family. _But I was never planning on going home to you_. That house isn’t home. Without Mickey, I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Lip can feel his expression pulling tight. “Are we that bad?” he asks.

Ian shakes his head, he looks manic for a second. “It’s not a question of that,” he says. “It’s not about whether I like you or don’t. We’re family, but tell me honestly… if I hadn’t left, would you have even noticed me there at all?”

And that’s the point isn’t it? That’s the problem.

Lip can’t say yes.

“Exactly,” Ian says. He turns around, shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. This whole conversation looks like it’s taken a lot out of him. It’s taken a lot out of Lip too. But they needed it, maybe, probably. Yes.

“I don’t want to be the Gallagher background piece,” he says and he’s smiling sadly now. “I want to be the other half of Mickey’s picture. I want to be where I fit.”

Lip can’t really begrudge him that.

“Can’t you fit in both pictures?” Lip asks. “Just a little bit. We don’t want to lose you.”

He laughs, drags a hand through hair that had been so carefully styled when he’d arrived. He can imagine Ian nervous, making sure every last lock was gelled precisely into place. Like he’d had to impress them for them to let him in.

“You never lost me,” he says, point blank honest. “You just convinced yourselves you had.”

He moves towards the door and Lip catches his wrist before he can stop himself. “Where are you going?” he asks.

Ian stares at him and it feels like they’ve reached some important point. Maybe it’s the point of no return, or maybe it’s the starting line again. He doesn’t know. “I’m going to go convince my boyfriend to dance with me,” he says, tugging his wrist free. “Enjoy your honeymoon, Lip. I’m happy for you.”

Lip follows him out a minute later, finds him standing on the very edge of the dancefloor. Ian’s lost his suit jacket now and Mickey had removed his jacket and tie the minute they’d gotten to the reception.

They’re not dancing, but Ian has his arms resting over Mickey’s shoulders and Mickey’s hands are on his waist. They’re talking, low voices and all-seeing eyes for nobody else but each other. The rest of the room may as well not even be there.

Lip puts an arm around his new wife and holds her close when she comes to him. He watches his brother kiss his boyfriend and he finds the answer to his previous question in the way Mickey meets his eyes.

Mickey nods to him and Lip knows then, with Princess Peach still burning on the back of his shoulder that this doesn’t have to be the beginning, the middle or even the end. It’s not even a do-over. This is just a fresh start.

**Author's Note:**

> Do your knees hurt? 'Cause baby I think you just fell from heaven! 
> 
> [themintsauce](http://themintsauce.tumblr.com)  
> @BethCottrell


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